Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vehicular control device, and more specifically to control applied to discharge the electric power that is stored in a vehicle at a smoothing capacitor when the vehicle has a collision.
Description of the Background Art
Electric vehicles, hybrid vehicles and other vehicles are widely used. These vehicles can run by driving power generated by an electric motor. Such a vehicle driving motor is driven with a power supply system receiving direct current (dc) voltage from a battery or a similar dc power supply and converting the received dc voltage into alternate current (ac) voltage via an inverter. Such a power supply system generally has the inverter with an input side (or a dc voltage side) provided with a smoothing capacitor.
Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2013-051755 discloses a control device of a vehicle having a permanent magnet synchronous motor mounted as a driving source. When the vehicle has a collision the control device operates to rapidly discharge the electric charge of a smoothing capacitor of an inverter supplying the motor with an ac current while the control device operates to minimize a torque unintentionally generated in the motor, even in a condition that the vehicle has a tire spinning and accordingly, the motor rotating.
Japanese Patent Laying-Open No. 2013-051755, however, does not discuss discharging the electric charge of the smoothing capacitor while a rotation angle sensor that senses the motor's rotation angle has failed, and thus there is a room for improvement.
The present invention has been made to address the above issue, and contemplates a vehicular control device allowing a smoothing capacitor's electric charge to be discharged while a rotation angle sensor has failed.